While driving gives a person mobility and independence, many seniors give up their driver’s licenses for safety. Researchers from the University of Manitoba said the big transition isn’t necessarily a positive one but may have found a way to turbo-charge their mood. The team from the university’s biomedical instrumentation lab developed a virtual reality driving simulator featuring downtown Winnipeg as background, hoping to boost participants’ mood, memory and spatial awareness. “We have different games in our lab, but we were thinking, ‘at this generation that we have, those who have dementia, they miss driving,’” said Seyedsaber Mirmiran, a research assistant with the team and a Ph.D candidate at the university. “This is kind of … nostalgia for them.” The study included adults over 50 years old who are cognitively healthy or with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), have memory issues, and dementia residents at the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre. A resident of the centre, 85-year-old Faigie Greaves, participated in the study. “It’s good. It was weird but it was just fine. I had no problem with that,” she said. When asked why she loves driving, her answer was independence. “You don’t have to call somebody to take you, you just jump in the car and you’re off. But those days were gone for me.” Mirmiran, who developed the simulator program, said it’s made a difference for participants. “We had a good result for advanced stage dementia, for MCI and also for elderly to moderate dementia, and also I saw a moderate improvement in the MCI.” Staff at Simkin Centre confirmed the positive impact. “Residents are saying how much they enjoy the time getting to do this, getting to practice a new skill,” said Sara Reid, the assistant director of care at the centre. “Video games weren’t really things that our residents did before, so (they are) getting to try something new and enjoy getting to drive again.” The team now needs to expand their sample size. This phase of the study at the Simkin Centre is over – but the simulator will stay put.
